Thai police are searching for two women who fled Bangkok Airport they allegedly tried to retrieve 50 kilograms of Rhinoceros Horns that had arrived in luggage from Ethiopia.  

The women are Thai, and had just arrived on flights from Vietnam and Cambodia.  Authorities say they were seen talking, indicating that they knew each other, and both are believed to be members of a wildlife trafficking gang.  But authorities were already suspicious of the bag containing the horns because of the weight - 50 kilograms.  In total there were 21 Rhino Horns worth US$5 Million on the black market - described as the biggest such confiscation in years.  Around the same time, police at Hanoi's Noi Bai international airport seized an even larger cache of more than 100 kilograms of Rhino Horn smuggled into the country in suitcases from Kenya. 

This comes as French police investigate the killing of a Rhino in a zoo outside Paris; the attackers shot the animal in the head and cut off its horn.  Those suspects are still at large.  The shocking attack - believed to be the first case of Rhino poaching in Europe - prompted zoos in Belgium and the Czech Republic to cut off the horns of their Rhinos to discourage poachers.  

Meanwhile, environmentalists are alarmed over a South African proposal to legalize domestic trade and some exports of Rhino Horns.  Breeders claim they can flood the market and decrease the cost of the contraband. 

"Banning the trade in horn has made the horn more and more and more valuable," said South Africa Rhino breeder John Hume.  "Had we never banned it, the price of horn would never have got to where it is now," he added.

But there is no domestic demand for the item, and any Rhino Horns in the market would more than likely end up heading over the border and towards Southeast Asia and China.  And critics say that legalizing the trade would only provide cover to illegal exports (.pdf link).